How Peyton Manning’s Retirement is a Huge Mistake by Him, John Elway, and the Denver Broncos

Former Tennessee Vol quarterback Peyton Manning’s retirement is a huge mistake on the part of him, John Elway, and the Denver Broncos. Here’s how.

Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos are throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime. That is, if the reports are true.

Woody Paige reported Saturday night that Manning is expected to officially announce his retirement later this week.  That report came after and before multiple reports that the Broncos are preparing to part ways with Peyton Manning.

If this is true, both sides are making an idiotic decision. Let’s start with the obvious. The Broncos just captured their third Super Bowl. Whenever your team wins a Super Bowl, you want to do whatever you can to keep everybody together and make another run.

Before we delve deeper into the Broncos, though, let’s move over to Peyton Manning.

Manning obviously just came off the worst season of his career, in which he was hurt the entire time and missed six games as a result. But he was good enough to step in and help his team make a Super Bowl run.

The Hall-of-Fame quarterback has accomplished everything in his career and is definitely good enough to be a game-manager for one more year on a team with an elite defense. Why not take that chance with the Broncos one last time? He has a chance to win a third Super Bowl, which would go along with his five MVP trophies and every record imaginable.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime, in which Manning has hit the lottery with a loaded defense that can carry him, and all he has to do is not make mistakes. Are we to sit up here and say Manning isn’t good enough to just do that for another year?

Who cares if he can’t do what he once could do? He doesn’t need to. If Manning were to ride the wave of a great defense to a second straight Super Bowl, and hey, maybe even play good enough in that Super Bowl to win a second Super Bowl MVP, he could walk out like John Elway did in 1999, with back to back Super Bowls. Add in all the records and the title he won in Indianapolis, and there would be no question about Manning as the greatest ever.

He’s good enough to do that.

Now, if he is retiring because the Broncos want to part ways with him, that is equally stupid on their part. John Elway has seemed to give every indication that he wants to move forward with Brock Osweiler in the future. But he just won a Super Bowl with Manning under center!

Why change that? Sure, Manning isn’t the hall of fame quarterback he once was, but you don’t need him to be! Before he tore his plantar fascia, he led the Broncos to a 7-0 record. Then he got healthy for the playoffs and led a game-winning drive to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, threw for two touchdowns against the New England Patriots, and managed to not screw up to allow his defense to win the Super Bowl.

If he can bring everybody back, there is no reason not to try for another run. And that brings us back to Manning.

Peyton Manning should go up to the Broncos and offer to play for $5 million next year. Elway has a few contracts he needs to restructure to keep the team in tact, and given that Ryan Clady and DeMarcus Ware have already agreed, Manning should follow. If he’s retiring, money is clearly not an issue.

So take a $14 million pay cut. If he does that, Elway should have more than enough to keep the team together. He can then make one final run in the final year of Manning’s contract.

At their press conference when he was introduced in 2012, Elway made it clear that his goal was to make Manning the greatest quarterback to ever play the game by getting him a couple of Super Bowls. He then signed a five-year deal.

If they only get one Super Bowl on a four-year deal, he did not reach his goal. Some of the inside reports are that Elway doesn’t mind Manning going down as a greater quarterback than him, but he has so much pride that he does not want his stardom in Denver upstaged by Manning. What he doesn’t understand is that it won’t be.

Manning has already surpassed Elway in the NFL ranks. But in Denver, Elway won the team two Super Bowls as a quarterback, and if Manning and the team make another Super Bowl run next year, he would have won two as an executive. Nothing Manning does can put him above Elway in Denver when it is all a testament to Elway as an executive.

There is clearly no real loyalty between Peyton Manning and the city of Denver outside of the Papa John’s investments. That has and will remain Elway’s town.

By keeping Manning around for one more year at a major paycut, he, Elway and the Broncos can all reach their initial goal of multiple Super Bowls, Manning retiring as the greatest to ever play the game without any question, and Elway becoming even a bigger legend in Denver by delivering two Super Bowls as both a player and executive.

Why the heck would you pass that sure thing up by taking a chance on Brock Osweiler?